Measurements of inclusive observables, such as particle multiplicities and
momentum spectra, have already delivered important information on
soft-inclusive ("minimum-bias") physics at the Large Hadron Collider. In order
to gain a more complete understanding, however, it is necessary to include also
observables that probe the structure of the studied events. We argue that
forward-backward (FB) correlations and event-shape observables may be
particulary useful first steps in this respect. We study the sensitivity of
several different types of FB correlations and two event shape variables -
transverse thrust and transverse thrust minor - to various sources of
theoretical uncertainty: multiple parton interactions, parton showers, colour
(re)connections, and hadronization. The power of each observable to furnish
constraints on Monte Carlo models is illustrated by including comparisons
between several recent, and qualitatively different, PYTHIA 6 tunes, for pp
collisions at sqrt(s) = 900 GeV.Comment: 13 page
